Archive for the 'Podcast' Category

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After a tough double-overtime victory at Memphis on Tuesday, the Lakers are in New Orleans to face the Hornets on Wednesday, so we dialed up Hornets.com’s Jim Eichenhofer to discuss the matchup.

Among the topics: how New Orleans has started 15 different starting line ups due to a bevy of injuries; why the Hornets have played better basketball against the league’s better teams; Chris Kaman’s strong play as a starter; Eric Gordon and Emeka Okafor injury updates and more.

Scott details how the locals in Boston are feeling about an aging Celtics squad that looks great at times and struggles at others, discussed who’s been playing well of late (Paul Pierce) and who’s struggled (injured Jermaine O’Neal), talked about L.A.’s inside advantage thanks to Gasol and Bynum and offered his take on the best and worst Celtics to interview.

The Lakers have won 16 consecutive games against Minnesota, dating back to 2007, but the current Rick Adelman-coached squad is easily the best team the Wolves have had since Kevin Garnett roamed around Minneapolis.

Minnesota (18-17) has already won more games than it did in the full 2010-11 season (17-65), and this season has beaten the Clippers, Mavericks and Rockets on the road … even if they again lost to L.A. 106-101 at home on Jan. 29. To preview Wednesday evening’s game at Staples Center – in which it now appears Kobe Bryant may play – we dialed up Wolves color analyst Jim Petersen.

To look further into Wednesday evening’s matchup between the Lakers and Mavericks in Dallas, we enlisted Mavericks TV play-by-play announcer Mark Followill to get the inside scoop on Dirk Nowitzki’s squad.

Followill discussed how different this team is from the championship version that relied upon departed players Tyson Chandler and (if to a lesser degree) J.J. Barea, explained why the Dallas D has been so strong of late, detailed what accounts for both the slow start and recent hot streak, looked at the legacy of Jason Kidd, Dirk and Kobe Bryant, talked about the difference in bench production for both teams and told us what to look out for in Wednesday’s game.

The final stop of L.A.’s six-game Grammy trip comes in Canada, a Sunday date with the Toronto Raptors, so we called one of our favorite Canadians — Tas Melas of The Basketball Jones — to see what we needed to learn.

Despite Melas’ envy of our ability to acquire tickets to the Maple Leafs – Canadiens hockey game subsequent to Lakers practice on Saturday evening (is there anything more Canadian?), he kindly told us why there is such an impressive amount of Lakers fans in Toronto, what to expect from the Raptors*, what makes Toronto such a cool city and more.
*The Raptors (9-19) beat Boston handily just as the Lakers were losing to the Knicks on Friday evening, meaning the Lakers need a win to salvage a .500 mark on the trip.

Less than 24 hours after a 100-89 loss at Milwaukee, the Lakers must rebound for a 4 p.m. Pacific tip in Minneapolis against an improved Timberwolves team that’s 9-10 after defeating San Antonio for the second time this season.

The Lakers have dominated the Wolves in recent years, winning 15 consecutive games, including sweeps in each of the past four seasons, but have started this season with just a 1-7 road record.

To discuss the matchup, we enlisted Minneapolis based AP reporter Jon Krawczynski, who has not only covered the Wolves for several seasons, but also spent two years covering the Indiana Pacers (2003-05) when Mike Brown was Rick Carlisle’s lead assistant. Krawczynski offered his thoughts on Brown, explained the two sides of the “Is Kevin Love a max player” argument, discussed Ricky Rubio — whom he said has entirely changed the culture in Minnesota and is the primary reason for the team’s turnaround — in detail and looked specifically towards the matchup against Kobe Bryant and the Lakers.

Clippers radio play-by-play voice Brian Sieman joined us on a preview podcast to discuss Wednesday’s Lakers – Clippers matchup, a rematch of a Jan. 14 102-94 home win for the Clips.

Among the topics: Chris Paul’s hamstring (Sieman expects him to return after missing five straight games); Blake Griffin’s post game; the Clippers’ lack of frontcourt depth; how a light early schedule (four fewer games than the Lakers) has helped; what he thinks the Clippers need to do to win and more.

We know that at least five of the six stars on L.A.’s and Miami’s respective rosters will be playing on Thursday night in South Beach, but Dwyane Wade (foot) remains a question mark. To break down the potential impact of Miami missing Wade, LeBron vs. Kobe, how the Heat and the Lakers fit into the league’s big picture, the specific matchup, Miami’s new offense and more, we enlisted ESPN.com’s Kevin Arnovitz.

Arnovitz covered the Heat throughout the entire 2010-11 campaign as the editor of The Heat Index at ESPN.com before returning to Los Angeles, and currently serves as an NBA writer, Clippers podcast host and co-editor of the True Hoop blog.

The Lakers play the Cleveland Cavaliers, Mike Brown’s former team, only once this season due to the compressed NBA schedule, so to better understand what we can expect in advance of Friday night’s contest, we dialed up Fox Sports Ohio sideline reporter Jeff Phelps.

An Akron, Ohio, native, Phelps has been covering the Cavs on TV for nine years, and Cleveland sports for 24 years, so he was there for the entire Brown and LeBron James eras. He shared what he knows about Brown and his assistant John Kuester, offered a variety of thoughts on James, detailed the strong start to the season from Cavs point guard Kyrie Irving, discussed current Cleveland coach and former Showtime Laker Byron Scott, underrated big man Anderson Varejao and more:

If you’re looking to find some meaning in advanced statistics that apply to your favorite NBA team, you can’t go wrong with the guys at Basketball Prospectus, which is why we had the site’s Kevin Pelton on to break down the Lakers.

Alongside co-author Bradford Doolittle, Pelton wrote extensively on each team for this season’s Pro Basketball Prospectus 2011-12 book, and we picked out several topics from the pages to discuss. Among them: what makes Matt Barnes effective; Pau Gasol’s elite efficiency; why Andrew Bynum provides the Lakers with renewed optimism; Kobe Bryant’s uniqueness; what Pelton likes about Josh McRoberts; and more.